SPREP Press Release
For Immediate Release 25 January 2008
Youth urged to take action to save reefs
The Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and partners have launched competitions for primary and secondary school students throughout the Pacific region to mark the beginning of activities to celebrate the 2008 Pacific Year of the Reef.
In announcing the commencement of competitions, SPREP’s Coral Reef Management Officer, Ms Caroline Vieux, stressed the need for urgent, concerted action to effectively protect Pacific reefs.
“Both competitions are designed to encourage people to connect and cooperate with others for reef conservation and protection,” Ms Vieux explained.
“Primary school students will need to talk with community elders for their entries in the ‘Legends of the Reef’ competition and older students would benefit from partnerships with Government agencies and non-Government organisations in the ‘challengecoralreef’ competition,” she elaborated.
‘Legends of the Reefs’ is a primary school competition that aims to capture stories that demonstrate the importance of reefs to Pacific island life. Entrants are required to write a composition of a legend or story about a reef in their area and draw a poster depicting the story. Entries for this competition should reach SPREP by 30 March 2008 and will be displayed at all SPREP meetings and events.
The three-phased ‘challengecoralreef’ competition requires groups of secondary school students to develop Action Plans of activities to protect a reef in their area by 25 February 2008. School groups with the five best Actions Plans will progress to the later phases of the competition during which funding will be provided to implement key components of their Plans. The overall champion will be invited to present their work at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Florida, USA.
Guidelines and a workbook can be obtained by entrants from the Pacific Year of the Reef page of the SPREP website at Digital submission of entries is encouraged and all participants in both competitions will receive participation packs. Prizes will be awarded to the winner of the ‘Legends of the Reef’ competition and all groups that reach the second phase of the ‘challengecoralreef’ competition. These have been made possible by the Coral Reef Initiatives for the Pacific project, the International Coral Reef Action Network, and the United Nations Foundation.
Both competitions were developed to promote the need for action and embody the Pacific Year of the Reef campaign slogan of ‘strong reefs, strong islands’ which articulates the pivotal role healthy reefs play in protecting our islands and sustaining our cultures and livelihoods.
The commencement of competitions coincides with the launch of the 2008 International Year of the Reef campaign by the International Coral Reef Initiative at a meeting and symposium in Washington DC. Ms Vieux will present an outline of scheduled activities of the Pacific campaign at the launch.
Other regional activities that will be part of the Pacific Year of the Reef celebrations include artistic events, the establishment of the Coral Reef Fund, development of a behaviour change workshop kit, and hosting of a Coral Reef Forum in September.
These will complement other regional reef-related activities of SPREP and partner organisations. These include a coastal governance project in Vanuatu, an economic valuation of reef ecosystems in the northern Pacific; promotion of community-based protected area management projects; identification of reef conservation priorities; development of alternative livelihood assessment tools; development of a coral reef atlas of the Pacific; and development of a post-larvae capture and culture project in Fiji.